Monday, August 30, 2010

The Sick.

Sorry for the lack of posts. Aside from moving twice in the last week, we've had some type of illness that swept in and stole away our 'head in the clouds, yay we're living in England!' atmosphere that we've been enjoying since we've been here. The kids came down with it first, and then kindly passed it on to Paul and I. Everyone else is on the mend, the kids completely over it. But I sit here, coughing up various colored 'stuff' and feeling generally awful. This has made the days long and the nights restless, and I haven't been in much of a mood to do anything worth posting about. That fact is just so sad as we are living in Cambridge right now, within walking distance of all these fun things, but I sit here, stuck, hacking up bits of my lungs and feeling sorry for myself. Yay!

Just about a week before we get into our house, though, and although the fact that our furniture is about 3 weeks away, I am still looking forward to some stability.

Yahoo for transitions! :)

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Awakening the 13 year old within.

There are very few times when I actually feel like an adult. I've said it on here before, it's no secret. But recently, with everything that we've been doing, I've had no choice but to feel and act with a little maturity.

That is, of course, until this morning. Because as I buckled myself in the car with the rest of my family, my husband popped in a tape (ya.. a TAPE... remember those?) that had the inscription Disney Collection scrawled on the top in writing that looked remarkably like my mother's. My eyebrow raised, I waited patiently for "the point". Bear Necessities came on, followed by that song that those siamese cats sang in.... that movie about the dogs... Lady and the Tramp. I was enjoying the smooth ride into my past, remembering listening to these songs that my mom recorded for me, all from when the Disney movies were good. But then my nice ride into my past was pushed violently to the cusp of teenage years, to that awkward time when I still wanted to act like a kid, but it suddenly wasn't cool anymore. The song broke off, and in a very noisy fashion, my young voice came on saying something to the effect of LAAAAAAAAAAAADIEEES AND GENTLEMEN!!!! INTRODUUUUUCING WEIRD ALLLLLLLL!!!! That younger version of myself then went on to record several Weird Al songs (by holding the tape-recorder up to my boom-box, of course), all the while singing along with them. It was karaoke. Karaoke done very badly. By an awkward version of myself. After a few songs, young me dazzled the crowds by doing a few minutes of stand-up, laughing uproariously at her own jokes and not minding the least that she was talking to herself, and not knowing that years down the road, she would be forced to relive this moment with her husband and children sitting in the car.

I could do nothing but laugh. I tried to convince Paul that I was only 8, maybe 10, but immediately after I made that claim, young me started going on about how she was about to turn 13. Dang.

We only got halfway through the first side of the tape, so I am sure there are more fun times to come in our car. Paul is thoroughly enjoying this, and I've learned not to mind it because, well, he's already married me. I've had his children. He's stuck, no matter what he learns about me from 8th-grade me. So carry on, tone-deaf Laura. Sing your heart out, girl.

Friday, August 13, 2010

New Ground.



(Please excuse the greasy lady in the background... Just focus on the cute kid. Thanks.)

(Also, ignore the clutter. And if you can't ignore it, just know that we've been living out of suitcases for... a long time now, and the kids don't exactly leave them packed.)


(Also, there just comes a time when you just don't want to repack them anymore.)

(And then you go crazy because it gets all claustrophobic in the room.)

(Really, just focus on the kid.)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Stagnant Water

Def: When water is confined so as to be practically motionless except as it may be moved by the wind or by the application of other forces to the surface, there is apt to be an accumulation of debris, which manifests itself in various ways.

That pretty much sums it up right now. We are stagnant at the moment, stuck in the 'hotel' of sorts on the base, which, along with the conveniences of actually being on base and within walking distance of stores, playgrounds, and various walking paths, also makes it feel as if you may never get moving again. Our ball has been rolling so quickly lately that this stillness is both appreciated and foreign.

Soon, though, we will be moving into our house. But between now and then, because of the delay in our arriving here, our reservation ends on the 13th of August, so we will be moving out of here and into another short-term housing situation. Not entirely excited about having another move thrown into the mix. The task of moving all of our luggage, along with the food we have in our cupboards and any other random items that have tagged along in our journey so far seems daunting to say the very least. I'm ready for some permanence after all of this moving about, but it will come soon enough... middle of September I am guessing.

The house makes me excited. It is not at all what I envisioned us in during all these months leading up to this, but that's ok. I really did think that we would be living in some old country house, with quirks and character and an odd layout and inconveniently small.... uh... everything. And we found a few of those. And I fell in love with one. You needed a map to get from point A to point B in the house, and the only way the third story could be reached was by a ladder (which my mother pointed out to me last night... how would I vacuum?). It was my personality come to life as a house. And really, if our kids weren't so small, and if we didn't have a boat full of huge, American sized furniture on the way, it would have been the ONE. But after thinking about it and facing the fact that perhaps all those quirks would only become tiresome after a few months, we kept looking, and three houses later we stumbled into this one. Well, I did anyway. Paul stayed in the car with our sleeping children, who have taken to sneaking naps in whenever they can. As I walked through the house, which promised to fit our furniture, I liked it more with every room I saw. I went out to the car, told Paul to go see it because he would have to know where to put the furniture when it arrived, because it WOULD be arriving here. This was it. We are in the process of 'sealing the deal' right now. I am excited!

Well, I think I was planning on writing more, but the kids are getting antsy. We are house-bound again today because of the rain, so I've deemed it a 'quiet day', but apparently they don't agree. I'll try and get some pictures and get them up here.

Cheers!

Monday, August 2, 2010

Blurb.

Have you ever had one of those days where you were going to the airport to begin a trans-Atlantic move, and about 30 minutes before you get there, you get a recording on your cell phone saying that your flight has been 'affected by a cancellation', only to find out that your connection to Chicago has been canceled and that there was absolutely no way for you to make your connection to London, so you have to push back your whole trip for a day, and now instead of starting at 5 pm and going through the night, you have to start at 6 am, and have a 7 hour layover in DC before finally making it on a flight to London?


No?

Well, I give you permission to live vicariously through me, then. Because I got to live the dream. And through it all, I met some great people, some interesting people. and some very unhelpful people. The kids did wonderfully. We had a few bumps where the insanity of it all tripled, but I did NOT ONCE resort to tears. And I think that says a lot. We were blessed on our trip over here, and it was nice to have at least one thing go smoothly in this bumpy transition of ours (well, you know, besides the canceled flight).

Now, I'm sitting here, with my coffee drip pumping caffeine into my system, trying to adjust to the time shift. My body is not really convinced that I should be awake right now. I am staring out of our window in our reconditioned army barracks, watching the rain start and stop again, not sure whether it really feels like putting forth the effort to really soak us. It's about 70 degrees, cloudy, and everybody is driving on the wrong side of the road. Eli is WALKING across our hotel room right now, looking for the next chord he can attempt to chew on. Alex is "taking a nap". Paul is out searching for a car for us to either buy or rent, so we can start looking for houses.

This all sort of feels dream-like to me, like I am stuck revisiting my past, back to our first year of marriage and misplaced on some foreign land, completely out of my element. But in reality, I am so relaxed and content and at ease being here, like I can finally settle in, after being bounced from place to place for so long. It's a good feeling, especially since part of me was worried that I would get here and immediately regret the decision to come back.

This will be home for the next three years at least. And that makes me happy.


(In other news, [well, not really] I have started looking at houses online that we can rent, and not having actually visited any yet, the following statement does not hold much water, but I think one huge contender in our house hunt is the following: HOUUUUSE!)